NEW YORK, Oct. 03, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:MKTX), the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities and the provider of market data and post-trade services for global fixed-income markets, today announced that it has launched the industry’s first client-to-multi-dealer electronic trading platform for leveraged loans, which is designed to provide efficient access to the growing leveraged loan market.

According to The Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA), loan trading volume has remained strong in 2016 at $394 billion year-to-date through the end of August. MarketAxess’ platform seeks to offer institutional market participants access to this growth through broader access to liquidity, better price discovery and greater efficiency in investing in the secondary loan market.

“There is an increasing demand for access to leveraged loans trading in what has traditionally been an opaque and underserved area of the market. We saw an opportunity to bridge that gap with our technology and bring greater efficiency and transparency to leveraged loan trading,” said Sandy White, High Yield and Leveraged Loan Product Manager, MarketAxess. “The launch is a natural extension of our high yield trading capabilities and underscores our commitment to providing a unique marketplace for institutional investors and dealers to facilitate trades with greater confidence, transparency and speed.”

Key features of the new leveraged loan trading platform include:

Request-for-quote model: The only client-to-multi-dealer trading platform for list and single-item loan trading

Search Function: Search for loans using the LX number, deal or tranche CUSIP or Issuer name

MarketAxess operates a leading electronic trading platform that enables fixed-income market participants to efficiently trade corporate bonds and other types of fixed-income instruments using MarketAxess’ patented trading technology. Over 1,100 institutional investor and broker-dealer firms are active users of the MarketAxess trading platform, accessing global liquidity in U.S. high-grade corporate bonds, emerging markets and high-yield bonds, European bonds, U.S. agency bonds, municipal bonds, credit default swaps and other fixed-income securities. MarketAxess also offers a number of trading-related products and services, including: market data to assist clients with trading decisions; connectivity solutions that facilitate straight-through processing; technology services to optimize trading environments; and execution services for exchange-traded fund managers and other clients. Through its Trax® division, MarketAxess also offers a range of pre- and post-trade services, including trade matching, regulatory transaction reporting and market and reference data, across a range of fixed-income products. Trax is the trading name of Xtrakter Ltd., a MarketAxess group company.

MarketAxess maintains its headquarters in New York and has offices in London, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, São Paulo, Hong Kong and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.marketaxess.com.